Economic Data & Indicators

This page lists popular sources of economic data and indicators relevant to Connecticut. For further resources and documents, please visitour main page on the Economy of Connecticut.

DataHaven Indicators

Economy indicators may be found here: http://www.ctdatahaven.org/dbt/indicators.php?topic=3. You may also visit the DataHaven portal on the Connecticut Data Collaborative website at http://ctdata.org/, where additional data is available for download. As we are developing a new system for visualizing this information, not all of our data sets have been uploaded here. Please contact us directly if you can't find what you need.

For the most recent general socioeconomic profile data on Connecticut towns and counties, please visit our page on Demographics. We have links here to the most recent profiles published by the Census Bureau.

8. United Way 2-1-1 Reports: Contains reports by topic area about calls to Connecticut’s free information and referral service, which helps improve access to various services. http://www.ctunitedway.org/Media/reports.asp

Connecticut Cities and Towns

Key Definitions of Indicators

Income

1. Median income: Median income is a common measure of the typical income in an area. Median household income, for example, is the level at which half of the households have lower incomes and half have higher incomes. Median family income tends to be higher than median household income because it excludes households with only one person. A household is defined as those living in the same dwelling unit, whereas a family is defined as two or more related individuals in the same household.

Self-Sufficiency Standard

According to the first report listed below, for a single parent household with two children (one preschool, one school age) in Greater New Haven in 2005, the self sufficiency rate would be a full time job paying $25.10/hour.

It does not appear that the standard has been updated in Connecticut since 2005, though updated calculations have been recently released for states like New York and Pennsylvania.

See reports below. The second report has a table showing the standard for various family types, from which hourly rates may be calculated:

Earned Income Tax Credit

Stay tuned for more on the Connecticut state earned income tax credit program.

Key Questions to Answer When Looking at Economic Indicators

1. Are there enough jobs available? Are people in the community making enough income to support their families?

Key outcomes of the economy are jobs, income, and the distribution of icome across different individuals and groups.Knowing which industries are employing the population, to what extent, and whether these industries are declining, growing or remaining stable is an important factor in considering economic policy. One measure of the region's ecomonic health is the extent and distribution of poverty. Individuals and households living in poverty have difficulty securing basic needs such as housing, clothing and shelter. Poverty reflects and results in a host of problems such as unmet nutritional and educational needs, crime and violence, and unequal access to educational opportunities.

Look at: Income, Poverty, Employment

2. What is the value of taxable property?

The property tax base and the income of its residents are major indicators of town's financial wealth. This figure also provides a measure of a community's ability to pay for infrastructure and education. It is a result of land use, housing, and economic development markets and policies.

Look at: Grand List

More Information

Our main Knowledge Center page about the economy in Connecticut may be foundhere.